Fall Update

Fall is well under way here! Its beautiful and has brought a bit of a change of activities for us.



We scrapped our summer To do lists and prioritized what we need/should get done before the snow flies. This week kept us busy with finishing the garden up and also working to get the greenhouse set for winter.



Also, I have been busy in the kitchen, which is not my favourite but it sure feels nice once you are done! We had a pumpkin pie and roasted seeds making day, lard making day and spent a day making soap with friends!

This pretty much sums up what is left in the garden now. Just beets and carrots, and a little bit of quinoa left as an experiment.

A braided garden snack while we work.

A gardening failure. A beet supposed to go to seed this year. It sure grew large, but that is about it! The pigs really enjoyed it anyway...



It feels very natural to have pigs next to the garden! As we pull things out they get tossed over our shoulder to their eager snouts. Here are Popcorn and River shaking their quinoa stalks like puppies. Pigs are never boring!



They all have favourite spots to be scratched. The magic spot for "the Biggie" is his forehead, and its sometimes the only way to get them to hold still for a picture! That is a very cute snout!

Here is my quinoa before I pulled most of it.

Here is where I put it to finish drying. I am quite excited to see what happens with it.

I was amazed at the variety of colours that we got.

Here is one little quinoa flower in my hand. It doesn't look much like quinoa does it?

But after a gently rubbing it with my finger, ta da! There is a quinoa seed there on the left. Not quite dry enough yet, but getting there!



We had a good few days work of harvesting potatoes. The little farmers really enjoyed it! I wasn't really happy with the quality or the yield of each of the varieties we planted, but they are so delicious and juicy. We will be eating potatoes for a very long time!



Here is what was keeping Matt busy this week. We had some logistics issues because we would really like to put the chicken camper in here for a chunk of the winter, but once the walls are on it complicates things. Where there is a will, there is a way! Just a more complicated way...

It looks awesome! I am so excited to start using this greenhouse!

And because I never get tired of horse picture, here is Mr. Charlie looking goofy.

And, I may have spent more time in the kitchen than I would have liked but I can't imagine a better view than this!
Things like this make my heart so full!